A life of bending low
to drop a seed and pat it home,
of striding back and forth
to hoe and water and wait.
The rows run straight as ever
as Uncle’s prized corn grows
in the same squared ground
since before I was born.
What do they mean?
Those sun-struck afternoons
after church we gathered
in the grass beside his rows
to talk and sing and scoop
buttery kernels steaming
onto plates. This year and last
Uncle’s corn grows with help.
Left to himself he might wander,
wonder why nothing came up
where no seed went.
When he can speak it,
my name these days
is the deepening hole
where he will soon go, a life
of growing under the sun
those first green stalks,
those shining silks.
Straight as ever run the rows.
Derek Sheffield’s most recent poetry collection is Not for Luck. His other books include Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, and Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. He is the poetry editor of Terrain.org. We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Golden Jubilee.
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